To create an A1 poster that is to be displayed alongside two others in Leeds College of Art’s Graphics Department for a week. Digital artwork is to be sent to and curated by Kieran Walsh; there are no contraints to the theme of the artwork, however a consideration towards the other two weekly artworks and potential collaberation is a possibility.
Concept
Considering the situational context and placement of the artwork (the corridor of the LCA Graphics Department), the audience is almost exclusively young creatives, as well as faculty members. This meant I could tailior the message of my content to an audience where any jargon specific to Graphic Design would be (hopefully) understood. I decided to shed light on the ‘off-hand’ terms creatives and designers use when describing artwork and trends. In my opinion they’re arbritrary and meaningless, what does describing something as ‘edgy’ actually mean? That it’s got a lot of edges? This whole project pokes fun at the culture of being a trendy designer type. It’s was also my intention to get the term ‘superedgyhipstercool’ trending (both socially and online), as yet another term to describe work that gives no insight as to what you actually mean.
What does #superedgyhipstercool actually mean? Absolutely nothing. It suggests nothing. And neither does half a bell pepper sitting on top of a tub of Sudacrem. Yet it still looks aesthetically pleasing.
Development
The concept itself developed into something that again could be appreciated within a design orientated environment. I took a couple of different directions early on with my artwork, and at first wanted something that every student within the college could relate to. There’s a film ’Get Him To The Greek’, which had a reasonably successful effect on mainstream media; there’s a scene where characters stroke a furry wall in order to calm themselves down. I wanted to capitalise on this and tie it something that evokes stress on all students: deadlines. I developed the artwork, lasercut my design on fur, and mounted it to board. Feedback on my design was well received as I hung it the studio prior to my allocated slot for ‘Triptych’, however decided against the design, as the whole purpose of it was interaction, and the viewer would lose this once it was mounted in a frame behind glass. I exhausted another idea, again playing on the themes within Graphic Design itself; I made a poster showcasing some photographs I took in Amsterdam, and styled it in a way that subtly indicated a ‘design faux pas’, the accidental typesetting of an orphan.
For the rest of the artwork, I highlighted similar themes, even photo-manipulating the Sudacrem photos and changing the name of the cream to ‘Super’, which was to heal any ‘Grid Sores, Bad Kerning or Orphans’. I used a variety techniques in my approach including lasercutting, traditional pencil illustrating, digital painting and more.
Artwork & Evaluation
While the situational context of this brief has been limited to a one-week framed curation, I feel I have propelled it further as a body of work that is representative of an aspect of Graphic Design culture in itself. the term #superedgyhipstercool has been used numerous times around the studio and other work by other students have used it. Online it hasn’t had the reach I’d have liked it too but I’m still tagging everything with the hashtag with the hope of continuing the project.
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